The day furious Colin Charvis turned on the Wales team-mates who 'bottled' the most infamous game of them all

Colin Charvis’s voice at the other end of the phone blazed with anger. The previous day Wales had subsided 96-13 to South Africa in Pretoria and the flanker was being asked for his view on where it had all gone wrong.

Charvis was famously his own man.

He spoke his mind and was never in a great hurry to make life easy for everyone in the media. Straightforward queries were often met with questions that left more than one reporter spluttering over his words.

But one thing no one could accuse Charvis of was any lack of passion about playing for Wales.

He was there when they crashed 51-0 against France at Wembley in April, 1998.

And he was present and correct when they were routed by the Springboks barely two months later.

Amazingly, 26 leading players were missing for that game in the South African capital: 18 of them had cried off from the tour and another eight had picked up injuries during a trip that had started three weeks earlier in Zimbabwe.

A number of the pre-tour drop-outs had genuine bumps. But Charvis and others felt some had simply chosen to give the trek to Africa a wide berth.

That wasn’t Charvis’s style. He always fronted up.

And he usually spoke out if he had something on his mind.

And this day he did have something he wanted the world to know.

MARK ORDERS recalls the day one of Wales’s greatest players couldn’t contain his rage...

Welsh rugby at the time

It is hard to overstate the mess the Welsh game was in at the time — up the creek without the means to do much about it probably sums it up best. There had been a 60-26 defeat by England during the Six Nations and then Thomas Castaignede ran amok at Wembley as Wales were wiped out by the French.

After the English hiding, skipper Rob Howley said: “We have to accept we are in the Five Nations’ second division.”

Kevin Bowring departed as national coach at the end of the championship and no one had been appointed on a full-time basis to take his place.

The picture on the club scene wasn’t much happier. Swansea under John Plumtree won the Premier League title, but even they couldn’t do much in Europe. Newport went an entire league season without winning a game: played 14, lost the lot.

Wales's darkest day came in 1998

The build-up to the tour

There had been calls for the trip to be cancelled on the grounds that the political situation was volatile in South Africa at the time, while Zimbabwe wasn’t exactly a beacon of stability.

Some urged the Welsh Rugby Union to make their excuses on the grounds that Wales didn’t have a full-time coach and had so many players who were unable to tour.

Each week seemed to bring news of three or four fresh drop-outs.

But the union pressed ahead with the trip, determined to fulfil their contractual obligations.

The games leading up to the Loftus Versfeld debacle

The trip had started with a 49-11 win over Zimbabwe.

But facing Zimbabwe ahead of a Test with South Africa is akin to hopping off a step ladder in preparation for a 200-metre bungee jump.

There were defeats by Emerging Springboks (35-13), Border (24-8), Natal (30-23) and Gauteng Falcons (39-37) before the big match of the tour.

The hosts had little respect for the tourists, with one local big-wig from the Mpumulanga rugby union pretty saying as much after the Emerging Springboks had vanquished those in red jerseys.

“I will not dwell too much on the hiding we handed your side,” he said during his speech at the post-match function, blustering on despite embarrassed looks all around the room.

Some Irish help?

On the Saturday before Wales met South Africa, Ireland played the same opposition.

Barely 90 minutes before the kick-off of the Irish game, this writer shared a lift with a 6ft 7in already-kitted player in the team hotel.

“Don’t worry. We’ll soften them up for you,” said the chap on hearing a Welsh accent.

Irish skipper Paddy Johns — for it was him in that lift — proved as good as his word, later that afternoon piling into the Boks as the Irish made a fight of it in a bruising encounter dubbed the Battle of Loftus Versveld.

Despite the Irish efforts, even a ‘softened-up’ Springboks were to prove way too tough for Wales.

The Test against the Boks

Stefan Terblanche scores for South Africa

Dennis John’s tourists were destroyed despite taking an early lead through a try from Arwel Thomas.

There were 15 home touchdowns in total, three of them from the left wing Pieter Roussow. Three players — Kingsley Jones, Paul John and Garin Jenkins — led Wales during the game as D ennis John tried desperately to stop the massacre. Percy Montgomery finished with 31 points.

Charvis and Barry Williams did well enough, but South Africa would have scored 100 points had hooker Naka Drotske not dropped the ball with the line beckoning.

That year’s Rugby Annual for Wales speculated that the tourists now knew how the 7th Cavalry felt that day at the Little Big Horn.

Post-match reaction

South Africa coach Nick Mallett branded Wales the worst international team he had seen.

Dennis John said he would back Wales to beat South Africa if they faced a full-strength Welsh team the following year. He was to be proved right.

John, a man as honest as the day is long, also seethed at those who had skipped the trip for dubious reasons: “If we don’t change, the boys who are sitting back in the comfort zone may as well leave their kit off and go and play cricket.

“Either they want to come and play for their country or they want to mess about in the sun back home.”

But that didn’t compare with the blowtorch treatment that was to come the following day...

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Charvis's rage

The call went through to Charvis’s room. Wales’ press officer had been called home by the Welsh Rugby Union barely a week into the trip — as if what was to unfold wouldn’t need any kind of gloss put on it — and so journalists were able to pretty much access any players they wanted to.

There was no problem with player interviews, anyway, in those days.

Charvis answered his phone and spoke to this writer, who was speaking from his own room.

This is what he said: “There is a considerable amount of resentment towards many of the guys who stayed home.

“Some of those people are earning lot of money and yet they could not be here when it mattered. Of course that causes others to feel upset.

“The players on tour have worked their backsides off for three weeks. We have given it our all and, although the Test result was terrible, a number of youngsters have really developed.

“But in many ways this is the Bitter and Twisted Tour because we will be going back to Wales and many of the boys who were unavailable will simple expect to step back into their places.

“As one of the most experienced players on this trip I went to Africa to represent my country. Even though we got hammered, I’m glad I made the effort. I could easily have stayed at home, flicked on Sky TV and put my feet up with a can of beer by my side.

“But I didn’t do that and neither did the other boys on the tour.

“There’s no respect at all for some of the guys back home. The feeling is that many of them bottled out.”

Lynn wades in, too

Forwards coach Lynn Howells later wrote in his autobiography: “Some players had genuine injuries. Rob Howley, Scott Gibbs, Neil Jenkins and Ieuan Evans had all toured with the Lions the previous season and all had suffered injuries. But some were afraid to go to South Africa, it’s as simple as that. Others realised it was a tour to avoid.”

What happened next?

Charvis was christened Doctor Kildare by some Wales players, for supposedly being able to determine whether they had injuries or not.

Wales just failed to beat South Africa at Wembley the following November and, just as John predicted the would, they managed to defeat them when the sides met at the Millennium Stadium the next summer.